Conversion filters; intellecutal property

["Patricia M. Godfrey" pmgodfrey@xxxxxxxx]

"that Word Perfect 10 has a conversion filter for XyWrite 3+ and 4+." It
would be more accurate to say that WP CLAIMS to have such filters. When
you try to import a Xy4 file with any formatting at all (even just itals)
it either chokes and says "unknown format" or strips out the itals. If
you have absolutely no formatting and no characters above the absolute
plain vanilla ASCII minimum, you can import a Xy4 file as "ASCII DOS
Text," but you'll have your "log" ID at the end as a string of gibberish.
In short, he statement about XyW4 filters is a lie: possibly not Corel's;
they may have simply believed Adobe.

Ed's analogy of his books is not quite on all fours with a computer
program. A work of literature, in the widest sense, stands alone. Even in
the case of, say, an outdated history or physics text, it's evidence of
the prevailing scholarly opinion at the time it was written. And of
course the value of literature in the more precise sense (poetry, novels,
drama, belles letters) is independent of time: we still read (I hope)
Homer and Vergil, Dante, Chaucer, and Shakespeare. A sofware program is a
tool. A hex-nut driver designed for nuts measured in conventional measure
(inches) will be no use, no matter how otherwise well-designed, if the
country switches to metric and one cannot buy three-fifth-inch nuts.

But we don't have to go to India; the Free Software Foundation exists and
flourishes here in the USA, and I suggested seeking their help in taking
XyW Public Domain. (I also wonder how they'll ever manage their
Indian-language project: Most Indian languages are not written in any
alphabet, but in a scheme of phonetic symbols. It's actually very like
Tolkien's Elvish system--not surprisingly, since Tolkien was a
world-class philologist.)
Patricia